


Endless Blank Slate

by Ruunkur



Series: The Nabatean Labs [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Consensual Memory manipulation, M/M, no beta we die like Glenn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:42:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24899374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruunkur/pseuds/Ruunkur
Summary: If you had the choice to forget the memory of a person that hurt you, would you take it?
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Series: The Nabatean Labs [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1812346
Comments: 6
Kudos: 18





	Endless Blank Slate

**Author's Note:**

> This was definitely inspired by the movie "The Endless Sunshine of a Spotless Mind". Excellent movie, I definitely suggest watching it.

The first time he had seen the red hair and the smile, Felix had just nodded and moved on to the next customer, intent to ignore the words that were said to him, the smile that was given. He passed along the drink when it was done, watched as the man leaned closer.

‘You didn’t even let me give you my name.”

“It’s Sylvain.”

He wasn’t sure how he knew it, maybe the man had been in the system in the cafe, maybe it was something else. He ignored the weird look his coworker cast him and he moved on.

It was supposed to be easy to forget the red hair and that smile that haunted him, but it nagged at him. It felt like an itch that couldn’t be scratched.

There was a time, Felix knew, when he had been happier than he had been. But a time when he had been worse than he was. What he lived in now, in a medium of happy and unhappy, was how he preferred it.

He would go to work, go home, work on his hobbies. He had a roommate, an old childhood friend. It was that first day that, when he looked at Ingrid, something felt wrong.

The nagging sensation followed him through his days before it finally faded, far back enough that nothing felt wrong.

When his life had finally settled, he would see the man again, a frown on his face as he stared up at the board.

“You know, I feel like I should know what I want.”

Felix just scoffs, shaking his head. “It’s not like there’s many choices. You aren’t going to get coffee. Bergamot is a good choice.”

There was that nagging feeling, settling deep in his stomach that Felix ignored. The man stared at him before he smiled. “You must have a good grasp on picking everyone’s favorite teas, you got me right in one.”

Felix rolled his eyes, turning to fix the tea once he took payment. He didn’t ask, just set the tea down on the counter, pushed it towards the man and went back to adjusting some products.

It would continue like that for three weeks, where the man would come in once a week, not actually order but still paid for what Felix made.

Each time he saw him, the name felt like it was on the tip of his tongue, but he ignored it, ignored it like all the missing photos in his home, of the strange sensations that something was missing.

The feeling would fade before he would see the man again. Each week, until it turned into a habit, Felix would have the drink ready on the man’s day. He still couldn’t remember the name and he was usually alone when the man came in.

It would be another three weeks of the strange ritual until he was working with Annette, the woman humming. When the bell jingled, she looked up, a smile taking up her face.

“Hey, Sylvain! It’s been months since any of us have seen you around! Where have you been hiding?”

Sylvain laughed, tilting his head as he met Annette’s gaze. “Oh, you know, I’ve been… around.”

Felix ignored the conversation, heading into the back to restock their various loose leaf teas. The door was open and he cocked his head. Their conversation drifted closer to him and he stepped next to the door, holding the container of tea in his hands.

“Have you talked to him?”

There was a pause, Felix frowning. If Sylvain… that man had come in before, maybe that’s where the nagging sense of acknowledgement came from? Maybe he had seen him a few times before and just didn’t remember him.

There was a strained laugh and Felix could imagine the look on Sylvain’s face as he-

As he what? He didn’t know the man, not one bit.

“I don’t know who you’re talking about, Annie.”

“But he…” There was a pause and Felix shut the door, unsure if he should be listening in on the conversation.

It was another two weeks, Sylvain absent during Felix’s shifts, before he approached Ingrid. They lived together, Ingrid coming to help him out when something…

Something had happened, something that had required some short-term time off, that he had to heal from. The doctors said confusion would be present, even more so when he was confronted with things he didn’t expect to see again.

“Did I know someone named Sylvain?”

The look on Ingrid’s face said enough, the horror and then the softness in her eyes before she shook her head. “It doesn’t sound familiar to me, sorry. Why?”

Felix swallowed the question, offering her a shrug in return. “No reason, it doesn’t matter.”

“If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.”

And so, he carried on. The next time he had seen the red haired man, it didn’t strike him as something was off. He didn’t recommend the Bergamon tea, didn’t have anything prepared. The man stared at the board until he had decided on Bergamot tea and moved on.

Annette had been there that day, too, and she stared at Felix, her eyes soft. “Do you ever think about it, him?”

“Think about what and who?” Felix asked, looking at her.

She blinked back at him before she shook her head. “Never mind.”

It was another piece of a puzzle he felt that he didn’t have. He was walking along the street, gaze distant, watching the signs. He had seen the different ads posted for the memory wipe, ads that offered a complete blank slate, the ability to take memories away, and he scoffed.

The world may be progressing, but there was nothing like that that could happen.

It had been a year since Felix had his accident, as he called it. He had woken up in the hospital and he had been told what to expect. Some confusion, avoiding certain places and reminders, and a list of other things. He hadn’t quite understood it, only that he had an issue with his memory.

Ingrid had been living with him and didn’t bother to move out, explaining it was cheaper to live with someone that she could stand than find a place on her own or someone else to share rent with.

Neither of them had to worry and both worked just to keep themselves busy.

It was on his birthday, snow drifting down from the sky lazily, that he saw the man again. His face was a mask as he swept into the coffee shop before he paused, hesitating. He looked at Felix, studied him before he smiled, walking over to the counter.

It had been three months since Felix had seen him, not that he was counting. It was just something he made a mental note of, something that ticked in the back of his head. He would have some of the strangest thoughts. A momentary piece of anger because he was being ignored, before it would be all swept away again, forgotten and locked away in some part of his mind.

He wasn’t sure if he cared or not. Not as the man, Sylvain, stepped out from the snow and into the cafe, a bundle of flowers in his hands. The pause and his hesitance grated on Felix’s nerves and he sighed.

“Do you want Bergamot today?”

The man laughed, sending aches deep into his chest. His heart swelled. He had thought, over the past two months, about the signs he had seen, the ads that claimed they could remove memories, and he wondered about his own.

“No, I uh… is it your birthday?” the man asked, still standing by the door.

Felix raised an eyebrow. “Do you work for a flower delivery company?”

Sylvain opened and closed his mouth, his brows furrowing before he nodded. “Sure I do, at The Knight’s Pot, three streets over.”

Felix had been there, last June. Had stopped in and looked at the flowers, looking to replace something that he didn’t understand. He had left empty handed, not before the clerk had smiled and asked how he was doing.

Even if Felix didn’t remember ever stepping foot into the shop.

“I’m making a delivery for…” Sylvain patted at his pockets, pulling out a small card. “Felix Fraldarius?”

“That’s me.”

He eyed the flowers as Sylvain stepped forward, placing them on the counter. There was a dozen Gladiolus in the bundle and he took it, staring at the flowers.

“Who are they from?”

Sylvain hesitated. “There was no name on the delivery, just that it’s… set up in the system to be delivered to Felix Fraldarius once a year.”

Felix nodded, looking at the flowers before he set them to the side. He opened his mouth but Sylvain smiled.

“Would you be interested in going on a date?”

Felix hesitated, the sense of longing bubbling up in him. He shifted his stance, something telling him to say-

“Sure.”

And so, the pair went on a date, a handful of them. He brought Sylvain back to the apartment, ignored the deep nagging feeling of something being _wrong_ and he ignored the started look Ingrid gave him when she found them.

It continued that way, the pair circling around each other. The nagging feeling grew stronger and Felix ignored it, suppressed it. Whatever had happened in the past, it was in the past. It didn’t matter.

Until it did.

The argument struck a cord between them. Six months after that first ill-conceived date and the argument bubbled over. Anger, frustration, the sense of something _missing_ that clawed at Felix from the inside out.

When Ingrid returned to see the destruction upon the apartment, she took Felix’s hand and guided him to a chair.

“I don’t want to see you go through this again.”

He lifted his head, eyes wide. “Again.” The question was flat and Ingrid nodded, her mouth set in a fixed line.

“Again, Felix. Again and again, I’m not going to watch it. I want you to watch something instead.” She fixed him with a look, got up and went to her bedroom before she returned with a disk. He only caught a glimpse of it before she put it in the dvd player and it played.

It was cold, like someone had poured water over him and left him out in the middle of December. The summer heat that filtered into the apartment didn’t penetrate his skin.

Memories, hundreds of them, starting from the time he was four and following in the footsteps of his brother and his brother’s sort of friend. Another child from the same neighborhood, the fancy kind that stated just how much money you had by the zip code at the end of the address.

Years of memories, each one carefully extracted, years of watching the red haired child, of Sylvain, grow into an adult. Of falling in love.

Of everything that had sat at the back of his skull and nagged at him until he felt frustrated.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, Ingrid?” Felix demanded, picking up the remote and turning the TV off. “Is this some kind of sick joke?”

Ingrid stared at him, her eyes wide. “Sylvain was our childhood friend, Felix. I’m not going to watch you throw your life away and descend back into all your bad habits because of him, not again.”

Felix swallowed, his hands shaking. The scars on his arms and legs he didn’t remember, the pain of a fist slamming into his jaw and breaking something.

The itch grew and grew, his eyes filling with tears and Ingrid reached out, pulling him into her arms.

“You two decided you were better off having never known each other. There were still going to be things that stuck, things so deeply rooted in muscle memory that even the Nabatean Labs couldn’t get all the way out. You had known Sylvain for so long, it would have damaged you to try and destroy every memory of him.”

“No, this is… this is some sick-” Felix swallowed back the doubt. He knew that Ingrid was right, that there was something there. Something deep inside that he had always known.

“Sylvain had the same procedure done. He stayed with Dimitri and…” Ingrid shook her head. “There’s a reason you two broke up.”

Felix swallowed glancing at the tv. He turned it back on, watching the memories play. The explosive arguments, the tension and the snapping. He watched as his father picked him up the night his jaw had been broken, horror in his eyes.

“We can… do better.”

“Felix.”

Felix looked up, hunching his shoulders before he looked back down.

“Dimitri is having this same talk with Sylvain. This isn’t healthy. You, more than anyone, should know that.”

Felix just nodded. But he had ignored it, drawn into the pull of Sylvain, circling around him even as the arguments grew worse.

Between the two of them, neither were great. They tried before they clashed and broke and Felix found himself at the Nabatean Labs, talking to the doctor.

New memories to be purged, his wrist throbbing. While his wrist had been broken, Felix had broken Sylvain’s leg in return and they had stared at each other.

And laughed, laughing over and over.

It wasn’t meant to be, two firestorms circling each other. They broke it off, tried to, came back together like clashing novas, fought and argued, exploded, made up.

Ingrid watched it all, replacing what was broken in the apartment, time and again. She didn’t mention it, didn’t press, just let it unfold.

Until it was too much.

“Felix Fraldarius, you’re ready for your memory extraction.”

Felix stood, heading towards the room. It was easier and this time, he wouldn’t make a mistake. He would find a new job, wouldn’t work if he had to. Just anything to stay away from the fires that had claimed his heart.


End file.
